Corfu, verdict by verdict

Corfu is the Ionian counterweight to the Aegean cliche: greener, wetter and more Venetian than any Cycladic island, with a UNESCO-listed old town of French arcades and Italian facades that feels closer to a southern-Italian port than to Mykonos. The north-east stacks cypress-framed bays and white-villa country, the west has the big sandy beaches, and the interior is olive-grove Greece at its most intact.

The trade-offs come with popularity and size: high season runs package-holiday dense, the east-coast resort strip is crowded and road-bound, cruise crowds fill the old town at midday, and Paleokastritsa traffic is real in summer. The island is too spread out for under three days, winter quiet means closure on the coasts, and anyone after the whitewashed-island look is in the wrong island group entirely.

Where it wins is texture: few Greek islands pair a proper old town with beaches this good and day trips this varied, from Paxos and Antipaxos turquoise coves to mountain villages, the Achilleion and monastery headlands. Five to seven days suits it, basing in or near Corfu Town for culture and ferries, the north-east for bays or the west for sand; May, June and September give warm water with thin crowds. It suits travelers wanting a greener, softer Greece below Cyclades prices.